Ali Khamenei was born in Mashhad, Iran, in 1939, because the second son of a neighborhood non secular chief, Javad Khamenei, and he grew up in relative poverty.
He realized to learn the Qur’an in early childhood earlier than attending a theological seminary college in Mashhad. At 18, he travelled to Najaf in central Iraq to review Shia jurisprudence, however was later requested by his father to return. He was a pupil of Ayatollah Hossein Borujerdi and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
There may be not a lot recognized about Khamenei’s household life, besides that he’s married and has six youngsters. Khamenei’s curiosity in poetry is a well known a part of his public persona. He usually cites poems in his speeches and hosts poetry gatherings the place pro-government poets collect to learn their poems to obtain his feedback. Khamenei’s curiosity in literature is sort of uncommon amongst non secular clerics. The identical goes for his curiosity in gardening.
Within the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies Khamenei was concerned in protests towards the US-backed monarchy (the shah), and was an ardent supporter of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then dwelling in exile, and towards the “westernisation” of Iran. This led to his arrest by the shah’s secret police and intelligence operation, the Organisation of Nationwide Safety and Info (Savak), which suppressed opposition to the shah.
Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the monarch who dominated Iran till 1979, was backed by western powers together with the US and the UK. After a decade of financial progress in Iran, primarily primarily based on oil revenues, didn’t result in an enchancment in the usual of dwelling for peculiar Iranians, a mixture of scholars, intellectuals and clerics created mixed help for a revolution.
After the shah was overthrown within the 1979 revolution, Iran grew to become an Islamic republic. Khamenei was appointed as a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Council, which was put in place to handle the revolution, and served as deputy defence minister and led Friday prayers in Tehran, which was thought-about extremely prestigious.
The brand new republic adopted an anti-western “imperialist” international coverage. This is named “global arrogance” (Estekbar Jahani) in Iranian post-revolutionary discourse.
In 1982, he was elected president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, successful 95% of the vote, after the earlier president, Mohammad Ali Rajai, was killed in a bomb assault in Tehran. Khamenei had been the goal of an assassination try two months earlier, leaving him with critical accidents and paralysis in his proper arm.
Iran’s supreme leaders reacts to air strikes by Israel and US rhetoric.
Iran’s battle with neighbouring Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein, lasted from 1980 to 1988 and is thought in Iran because the “sacred defence”. The battle started after an invasion by Iraqi troops on Iranian territory and resulted in round a million deaths throughout each international locations.
This was one other vital interval in Khamenei’s profession. He was lively in managing Iran’s defence because the chairman of the supreme council of battle help throughout this era. The council was shaped to ensure the nation was as ready as doable through the battle and to take measures to mobilise forces and to satisfy the wants of the battle on the battlefront.
He additionally commanded the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite a part of the Iranian armed forces, from 1981. On the finish of the battle, Khamenei claimed Iran had received a “luminous victory”.
He praised Khomeini for his techniques within the battle and mentioned that the supreme chief had realised from the very starting that it was not an peculiar battle between two neighbours. “He recognised the enemy and realised that the main enemy is not present in the war, and he recognised that Saddam is just a tool.”
He went on to counsel that this was a battle about US regional energy and that Saddam Hussein would proceed to obtain US help.
Rising to supreme management
Khamenei grew to become supreme chief in 1989 after the loss of life of Khomeini. He was designated as the brand new chief by the Meeting of Specialists, an 88-member physique of Islamic clerics. He dominated in the identical type, and with the identical sort of international coverage, as his predecessor; searching for allies to offset US energy within the area.
The duties designated for the rahbar (supreme chief) are listed in Article 101 of the structure and vary from figuring out the political route of the federal government (in session with an advisory committee) to commanding the armed forces to declaring battle, peace, and the mobilisation of armed forces to pardoning or commuting sentences upon advice of the top of the judiciary.
Khomeini’s conception of Islamic authorities was centred on the doctrine of the guardianship of “the jurist”, referred to as velayat-e faqih, and this continued on the coronary heart of the federal government that adopted below Khamenei. This provides the supreme chief in depth powers, together with management over the army, judiciary and media.
This doctrine performs an important position in legitimising theocratic energy in Iran, linking non secular authority with the state. Dialogue about velayat-e faqih continues inside Iranian society as a part of an ongoing dialogue between conventional non secular authority and civil society.
The query of who may come to energy after Khamenei was raised through the grassroots rebellion and pro-democracy protests round Iran in 2022 and 2023. It was anticipated that any transition would take a substantial period of time, particularly if the goal was for a extra democratic type of authorities.
The present battle may counsel a special end result. Despite the fact that the Israeli assaults on Iran have once more sparked dialogue of a doable change of chief, the general public is targeted now on their very own security, and defending Iran, not on political change.
Any exterior battle or threats coming from outdoors Iran has traditionally united Iranians towards aggressors. Which means the trail to democratic change just isn’t prone to be created, or helped, by Israeli air strikes or US threats.
